Hazon Educational Library: Crafting + DIY

Traditionally, weaving has deep roots in the Jewish culture. The craft of weaving is one of the 39 crafts that the Jewish people used to create the Mishkan (tabernacle) in the desert. Weaving, and many of the actions associated with weaving are mentioned specifically in the 39 Melachot, the list of labor forbidden on Shabbat. Although many of the traditional Jewish weaving techniques have been lost to exile, modern day ritual objects are often still made from woven materials, including challah covers, kippot and tallis. Looking back, history shows us that the nomadic Israelites used what fibers they had on hand, such as camel, goat, and sheep, to create their clothing and dwellings. These ancestral methods were simple. Using this simplicity as inspiration, the loom for this project is crafted from sturdy cardboard, the warp is made using cotton string, and the weft consists of long pieces of recycled fabric. Simplicity is often key in introducing new textile art projects to preschool age children. These projects are multifaceted and engaging to young minds, integrating core skill sets such as language and literacy development through oral storytelling, problem solving, pattern recognition, and fine motor development.

This program is an interactive color exploration through natural dyeing. Participants will learn about the symbolism and holiness associated with certain colors in Judaism, specifically the blue of tekhelet that is found in Tzitzit. They will also learn how to harvest and use different parts of plants to create their own dye and take home a self-dyed bookmark.

This program is designed to engage families with young children with the holiday of Sukkot and the festival?s connection to nature and the environment. Through stories, activities and arts & crafts, families will begin to develop a relationship to the rituals and traditions of Sukkot and think about their own connection to the natural world.

Everyone has things they stand for and qualities they value. Grounding ourselves in the Biblical texts about Tribal flags the Midrash there, we will use flags as an opportunity to think about what symbols we can use to describe ourselves and what we value. Participants will learn about themselves and get to make their own flags that serve to unify what they stand for with where they came from.

This program is an interactive introduction to the environmental Jewish value of Bal Tashchit, not destroying or wasting valuable resources. Participants will have the opportunity to explore creative ways we can reduce our carbon footprint by reducing and reusing everyday materials through a solar-oven baked shrinky dink project.

This program is an introduction to Havdallah and DIY candle making. Participants will learn about a Havdallah candle and leave with their own candle. Students will leave with an understanding of what renewable resources are.

Any Jewish farm, school, community center or garden can use this document to either create a calendar garden with the community or to lead interactive educational programs that situate the holiday and season in Jewish cycles of time. This document gives an overview of the mosaic design process. It does not give detailed instructions for mosaics; seek this out elsewhere if you are not familiar with outdoor mosaics.

This program is an introduction to the history and uses of medicinal herbs growing in the Camp Tawonga Garden. Participants will learn about how medicinal herbs connect to self-care and earth-care. Participants will learn about the healing properties of twelve medicinal herbs as well as their cultural and historic uses: Israeli, Mediterranean, Jewish and Native American. Participants will be given the opportunity to and think about what it means to connect both to their herbal heritage as well as the medicinal herbs that grow natively on this land.

This program helps us explore and expand our relationship to Maror. After learning through a text study that the definition of Maror is different and also more expansive than we might have thought, participants will get to taste and then plant a wide variety of bitter leaves that could grow in their region in time for Passover.

This lesson introduces students to traditional Jewish understandings of work and rest. They will understand that ?work? traditionally meant interacting with the environment, and the connection between melachot and shabbat. They will also create challah covers and learn about Shabbat symbols like challah and challah covers.

This program is an informational and hands-on dive into artisanal/DIY chocolate making. Participants will learn all of the steps in the process--from how cacao trees were first cultivated in ancient mesoamerica, to how to wrap their gelt in foil. Taste, touch, history, mysticism, and science are all called upon to make coherent the relationship between chocolate, ecology, and Judaism.

This program is meant to open up participants to Torah of the forest and the farm, to see where the materials come from and to connect to the beauty and awe of a physical Torah. In the fall on the east coast, the forest comes alive with color, as the trees turn and drop their leaves and their seeds. By exploring and examining a few of the elements that make up our physical Torah, participants will walk away with an altered view and understanding of our most central text.